Imagine that a good friend of yours has taken on a project that is beyond their capabilities. Maybe not too far beyond, but enough so that they're floundering. You're watching them flounder, and you can see that they're in further over their head than they themselves believe.

At what point do you step in?

At what point to you offer advice? At what point do you insist on pushing advice on them? At what point do grab they keyboard?

The answer is probably "it depends," so let's consider a range of scenarios:

The Personal Learning Project that your friend has taken on to learn a new technology. Nobody other than the two of you know about the project.

The Homework Project that your friend depends on for a passing grade.

The Community Service Project that your friend has taken on. Say, to add some calendar software to a community web site that you use. (And to ensure obligatory Perl content, let's say the work will be done in Perl :-)

The Work Project that your friend depends on for their continued employement, but which has no effect on you otherwise.

The Work Project that will affect you adversely in some way if it isn't done well. (You might work at the same company, and your project might be downstream of yours.)

The Nuclear Reactor Control Program that runs the Nuke plant upwind of your community.

These present a sliding range of consequences to you, from none to possibly severe.

When do you step in, how far do you step in, and why?

I'm facing one of these issues with a friend now, and am suspicious of my initial reaction.

In reply to When do you step in, and why? by dws

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